“The trouble with this novel,” said Mary Brooks, “is that the hero can’t seem to get any chance.“
The girls were sitting on the Colonial’s piazza after breakfast, their chairs drawn into a confidential circle in a retired nook close to the water’s edge. Farther back Mr. and Mrs. Wales and Miss Hale were talking with a family of Spanish-Americans that Mr. and Mrs. Wales had met at almost every stop they had made in their West Indian cruise. Dr. Eaton was playing clock-golf on the lawn with a group of men.
“Then,” said Madeline, watching him critically, as he made a brilliant putt into the cup from the very edge of the green, “I should say that the trouble is not with the novel, but with the hero. He has had plenty of chances, but he doesn’t use them. In plain terms, he isn’t much of a hero.”
“I’m beginning to think he’s slow myself,” declared Bob Parker. “Betty’s father helps him along a lot. He asks him to all our parties, and fairly throws Miss Hale at his head, and yet——”
“Bob,” interrupted Mary severely, “please speak more respectfully of Betty’s father. You’re making him out a very peculiar person.”
“You know what I mean well enough,” returned Bob calmly. “I mean that he tries to make things pleasant for everybody, and of course Miss Hale and Dr. Eaton are the natural ones to be paired off together.”
“That’s better,” said Mary approvingly. “Yes, I know what you mean, and I admit that Mr. Wales is a merry match-maker with a vengeance, but——”
“Oh, Mary,” interposed Betty hastily, “he doesn’t know a thing about that. I should never dare mention it to him or mother. I’m afraid they wouldn’t think it was exactly—nice.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that it was intentional assistance he was giving us,” explained Mary, “but the effect is just the same. He’s been a noble ally, but it wasn’t that kind of chances—chances to talk society small talk with the heroine, or to walk and sail with her, and so on,—that I was thinking of.”
“Well, hurry and tell us what you were thinking of, then,” demanded Bob impatiently.
“Well,” Mary began with provoking slowness, “I was thinking of heroic chances. A hero isn’t a hero because he makes love well. The heroine tolerates his love-making because he’s a hero. But somehow down here there’s no chance to be up and doing. If it was only South America, now, and if there was a revolution brewing, and Dr. Eaton should save some of our lives, or get an army together and be elected president or king or whatever the people wanted to elect—why, then of course Miss Hale would admire him tremendously, and the novel would spin along like a top.”
“I guess there’s a good deal in that, Mary,” declared Bob. “Stories that don’t have any adventures in them are always about stupid people.”
“Then,” said Madeline, “we must be stupid people, for we haven’t had anything yet that can be called an adventure, and in two days we sail for home.”
“We’ve had an awfully good time though,” amended Eleanor.
“And Helen Chase Adams has improved her mind a lot,” added Babe, “and she has also improved the way she does up her hair.”
“Nevertheless,” said Mary, “I shall always regret it if the merry match-making part falls through.”
“Girls,” said Madeline gravely, “it is clearly our duty to save President Brooks’s feelings. Who will volunteer to throw herself in front of one of these crazy Nassau horses, or to fall from the lookout at Fort Charlotte, or tumble down the Queen’s Staircase behind Fort Fincastle, or——”
“Jump into the swimming-pool,” suggested Bob.
“Or off the yacht,” added Eleanor.
“Or get lost at night up in Grant’s Town,” put in Babbie.
“That’s enough,” interrupted Madeline severely. “You get the idea. Now, who will be the victim?”
“But suppose the hero didn’t come and rescue you?” suggested Helen. “Besides, isn’t it the heroine that the hero always rescues?”
“Well, generally it is,” admitted Madeline, “but in this case I think any one of us would do beautifully. A chaperon would have to be extremely grateful to anybody who saved the life of one of her young charges.”
Madeline yawned ostentatiously. “Girls,” she said, “let us elect President Brooks to the office of first victim-in-waiting to the hero. All in favor say aye.”
“Aye!” shouted everybody promptly.
“I think you ought to have elected Betty,” objected Mary. “She’s always getting into fixes, whereas I never do; and if I begin now it will look like a put-up job.”
Betty blushed guiltily. “I am always having mishaps,” she said. “I had one this morning. I wasn’t going to tell about it, but it would have been a perfectly fine chance for a hero if he’d been there. But he wasn’t.”
“Well, tell us about it,” demanded Mary. “Couldn’t you do the same thing over again?”
“Of course not,” said Betty indignantly. “It was this way. You know I came down early to breakfast, to help mother into her dress that buttons up the back. Well, I was hurrying down the hill on Market Street, thinking how sorry I should be to leave this funny little place, and all of a sudden I heard a bicycle bell behind me. It startled me dreadfully and I began to go to the right; but then I remembered that you must pass to the left here, so I changed and went to the left, and the result was that we both landed in the middle of the road on top of each other. That is, the man and the wheel went over me.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Roberta. “Weren’t you hurt?”
“Not very much, but I was dreadfully frightened, because the man groaned and acted as if he was nearly dead,—he was a negro, you understand,—and I was afraid he would arrest me, before I could find father. You see it was early and there weren’t any white people out, but there were a lot of negroes and I thought they would take his part. In the end they were awfully nice. A big black man helped me up and scolded the man on the wheel, and made him say he was sorry, and then I walked home and brushed off the dust and got a scolding from father for being so heedless, and made him promise not to tell you girls. But just for a few minutes I should have been awfully glad to have a hero come and rescue me. I suppose, though, he was probably sound asleep,” ended Betty practically. “He’s always late to breakfast.”
“Which shows,” said Mary, “that it is the early hero who catches the girl. Just think what a waste of a perfectly good adventure!”
“Anyhow it proves that we’re not in the class with Bob’s stupid people who never have adventures!” said Madeline, “and that’s a great relief. Here comes Miss Hale.”
“Girls,” said Ethel, hurrying up to the group, “have you any plan for this morning?”
“Nothing but to sit around here until it’s time to have a bath in the swimming-pool,” answered Betty. “So I’m sure that we should all like to do whatever you’ve thought of.”
“These friends of your father’s have been telling us about another bathing-place,” explained Ethel, “out on the surf-side of Hog Island.”
“That’s the little island out in the harbor, isn’t it?” asked Betty.
Ethel nodded. “The man who owns it runs boats back and forth across the bay all through the morning. He has a fruit orchard out there too, where you can stop to rest and eat all the fruit you want after your bath. These people say it’s great fun to go over there, and the nicest part of all is that it only costs twenty-five cents.”
“Boat trips and fruit and all?” asked Eleanor.
“Boat trips and fruit and all,” repeated Ethel.
“Of course we all want to go,” said Mary. “We don’t want to go home feeling that we have missed anything—particularly something that only costs a quarter.”
“Shall we start right off?” asked Babe.
“That is just as you please,” said Ethel, “but it’s quite a walk to the Hog Island landing, and we might have to wait a few minutes for a boat.”
“Then by all means let’s go now,” said Babe, rising energetically. “I don’t care so much about the surf bathing, but it seems as if I couldn’t wait to get to the fruit orchard part.”
So the bathing contingent hurried down to the Casino to get their suits; those who did not care to go into the surf collected books and fancy-work to help them while away the morning under the trees in the orange grove, and presently the party, which as a matter-of-course included Dr. Eaton, was wending its way to the wharf.
During the short row to the island, Babe interrogated the boatman as to the exact amount of fruit that was included in the quarter’s toll.
“All you lak,” said the big black fellow with a grin. “One man he eat forty oranges, and some they stay over all day and git thar dinner and thar supper. Don’t you worry ’bout that, missy.”
“I shan’t,” said Babe, with a sigh of satisfaction. “I don’t believe I shall have to pay extra. Just imagine eating forty oranges in one day!”
The sun was very hot on the water, and it was a great relief to get into the shade of the tamarind and almond trees that lined the trail across Hog Island.
“Dear me!” said Babbie, when they had reached the other side. “The bathing-houses are right out in the boiling sun, and the white beach looks sizzling hot. I’m going to stay here with Mrs. Wales.”
“I’m going to stay with her, too,” said Roberta. “I didn’t even bring my bathing things, because I knew it would be too hot for me.”
“How about all those thin dresses that I made you pack?” jeered Mary.
“I wish they were thinner,” sighed Roberta, who hated dreadfully to be either too hot or too cold.
But in spite of the blinding glare of the sun on the white sand, the rest persisted in their intention of having a bath in the surf.
“It can’t be so bad as it looks from here,” said Helen, “or all those people who are in bathing couldn’t stand it. They seem to be having a grand time.”
“The water must be a little cool anyhow,” added Mary.
“And it will be such fun tumbling around in those big waves,” said Betty. “I don’t suppose that I can practice swimming though, can I, father?”
“Oh, perhaps you can,” said Mr. Wales, carelessly. “That surf isn’t very strong.”
“Well, if I can’t, I shall take another bath in the swimming-pool this afternoon,” declared Betty. “I am bound to learn to swim a little before I leave Nassau.”
“Promise not to begin to eat until we come back,” called Babe over her shoulder to the three who had stayed behind.
“We won’t,” they shouted back, and Babe, reassured that no one would begin until she did, hurried after the rest up the sunny slope to the bath-houses. There was a breeze up there and down on the sand, that wasn’t blowing in the grove; and the water was cool, though not cool enough to be very invigorating. So nobody cared to stay in long,—at least nobody but Betty, who found that she could practice swimming almost as well here as in the still pool at the Casino.
“I’ve almost got it,” she explained to Dr. Eaton, who was an expert swimmer and had been trying to show her the stroke. “I can stay up as long as I like, but I stay in one place. I can’t go ahead any.”
“You’ll soon get that,” said Dr. Eaton, swimming off into deep water. “It’s too shallow where you are,” he called as he swam. “Try it out a little further.”
And Betty, being perfectly fearless, tried, with such success that she did not notice for some time that Mr. Wales, Ethel, and the girls had all gone in, and that the beach was for the moment clear of other bathers except Dr. Eaton, who had waded to shore very much further down and stood there examining a shell that he had picked up in the sand.
“I’m going to swim in from here just once more,” thought Betty, wading out to where the water was almost up to her arm-pits. “Madeline has been ready to catch me before, but she hasn’t had to. I’m not afraid!”
But somehow Madeline’s not being there, ready to help if she was needed, did make a difference. All of a sudden, while she was still in fairly deep water, Betty realized that she was alone and afraid. She lost the stroke and went under. Struggling to get her footing she was knocked flat again by an unusually big wave. The water surged and gurgled over her, she tried again to get up, and again fell back, faint and almost exhausted. But she would not give up! To die like this in five feet of water! She tried to cry out, but the waves drowned her voice. And then she stopped trying to get her footing. She was too tired to struggle any longer or to notice when something splashed along beside her. She thought it was only another big dark wave coming at her until a strong arm pulled her up into the air and sunshine, and a laughing voice asked her if she was all right now.
“I guess so,” gasped Betty, coughing and trying to wipe her eyes on the dripping sleeve of her bathing-suit.
“Can you walk in to shore, or shall I carry you?” inquired the voice anxiously, and for the first time Betty perceived that it was Dr. Eaton who had come to her rescue.
“Oh, I can walk all right. I’m only—out of breath,” said Betty, waving her hand reassuringly to a confused group of people, headed by Miss Hale, who were running down the beach toward her.
“Lucky I saw you just when I did,” said Dr. Eaton, soberly. “I’m awfully sorry you had such a fright, Miss Wales.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” said Betty, easily, wading slowly in toward the shore, “only it is unpleasant to—— Oh, Ethel, don’t look like that. Please, please don’t! I’m not hurt one bit.”
Miss Hale was as white as the sand that gleamed under her feet. “Oh, Betty, Betty Wales,” she cried, “you frightened us all so!” Her voice broke into a little sob. “You were under my charge, too. I should have had to tell your mother that I’d let you—let you drown.” She turned to Dr. Eaton. “I can’t thank you enough, John.” She held out her hand and Dr. Eaton shook it gravely. Then Ethel turned without a word, and ran up the steps to the bath-house, and after a moment Dr. Eaton followed.
Betty turned with an hysterical little laugh to the girls who were hovering anxiously about her. “Well, Mary Brooks, I hope you’re satisfied,” she began. “I hope you realize that I’ve given your hero a chance.”
Mary stared in astonishment, and then, suddenly comprehending, as she thought, she smiled her most beamish smile. “You little fraud,” she said. “You mean you did it on purpose? How did you ever manage it?”
“Did it on purpose!” repeated Betty indignantly. “If you’d ever been nearly drowned, I guess you wouldn’t care to do it again on purpose, Mary Brooks.”
“It was beautifully apropos, wasn’t it?” laughed Madeline. “Did you remember anything about our talk this morning, while you were waiting for the hero to sprint down the beach?”
“No,” said Betty, “I didn’t. I was too busy trying to scramble up to think of anything.”
“Didn’t you think of all your past life?” inquired Babe, solemnly.
“No,” said Betty.
“Then,” said Babe, “I don’t believe you came as near being drowned as it looked.”
“Perhaps not,” said Betty, wearily, “but I’m awfully, awfully tired now.”
Eleanor and Mary flew to help her up to the house, reproaching themselves with not having hurried her in to rest sooner. As the procession of bedraggled figures took its way up the path, Helen Chase Adams made an astonishing announcement.
“Girls,” she began in awed, wondering tones. “Didn’t any of you notice? She called him John. Miss Hale called Dr. Eaton that, I mean, just now when she thanked him.”
“Did she?” asked Betty, absently. “I didn’t notice.”
“Yes,” cried Babe, eagerly, “she did. I remember now. I was so frightened about you at the time that I hardly heard, but she certainly said, ‘I can’t thank you enough, John.’ How do you suppose she happened to?”
The procession halted to consider the matter. “She was awfully rattled,” suggested Bob. “Perhaps it was just a slip of the tongue.”
“Why, of course it was a slip of the tongue,” agreed Mary, scornfully, “but just the same it shows how fast they’ve been getting on, when we thought they weren’t getting on at all. It’s amazing! You don’t know how relieved I am, Betty. I don’t believe we shall have to worry one bit more about the merry match-making.”
“I wonder if Miss Hale knows what she said,” Madeline speculated, as they went on up the steps. “If they have got to the calling-each-other-by-the-first-name stage so soon, it must be that they’ve been acting formal and offish to deceive us and put us off the scent. But after this they must see that it won’t be much use to pretend.”
“You will be careful, girls, won’t you?” begged Betty. “You won’t stare at them or—or—act too interested?”
“Never,” Mary promised solemnly. “We shall be completely absorbed in you. Besides, it would be against all the rules for good match-making.”
But down in the orange grove, in spite of the excitement over Betty’s narrow escape and the counter attraction of a banana-eating contest between Bob and Eleanor, it was impossible for any of the nine girls to keep their eyes turned resolutely away from Ethel and Dr. Eaton.
“My, but isn’t he devoted!” whispered Bob.
“They aren’t even trying to pretend,” declared Helen softly. “I think the pretending was Miss Hale’s idea. I’m positive he’s wanted to be devoted before, only she wouldn’t allow it.”
“And now she likes it as well as he does,” added Madeline. “She isn’t even thinking of blushing and running away.”
“Which proves that all the hero needed was a chance,” murmured Mary Brooks, proud of her discernment.
Roberta sat down beside Betty, bringing her a glass of cocoanut “milk” to taste.
“Aren’t you pleased about the novel?” she asked.
“Isn’t it comical?” laughed Betty. “I was the one that didn’t believe in the novel, as you call it, and now I seem to be the one who has helped it along. But just the same, Roberta,—don’t tell Mary, because I can’t argue the way she can,—but I’m perfectly sure that all Mary’s scheming hasn’t had a thing to do with it.”
“What has then?” demanded Roberta incredulously.
“I don’t know,” said Betty, “only I’m sure it’s all a lot more complicated than Mary and the rest of you think. In novels people may fall in love that way, but not in real life.”
Roberta considered for a moment. “Well, anyhow it will make a beautiful story,” she declared at last. “Mary is going to write it on the steamer, and we are going to illustrate it with the pictures we’ve taken.”
“What a grand idea!” cried Betty, jumping up as briskly as if she had not just escaped drowning. “And now let’s go and try all the queer fruit before somebody says that it’s time to go.”